Tale of 4 Gamers – October Update

Well, here we are in the middle of October and it seems as if I’ve already completely abandoned the Tale of 4 Gamers within the first 6 weeks!  I’m happy to report that is not entirely true.  I did miss out of my September painting commitment, sort of…  Here’s a shot of my monthly commitment and all of them would pass the three-color minimum at least.  However, I obviously hold myself to a higher standard than that.

With this army, I’m trying to learn to do Non-Metallic Metal painting.  Not entirely sure how I’m doing but at first glance I think the models look okay.  Learning this new technique has definitely slowed me down quite a bit.  Add on top of that a very busy non-hobby family schedule and I came up short this month.

So what did I get finished… I’d say that 5 of the dwarves are 90% done.  I just have some highlighting and shading to do on the non-metallic parts.  I really spent a lot of time working on the metallic armor and weapons but don’t have much more than a basecoat on the other parts of the models:

I also did some work on the other five models.  The armor is done on the Bow-armed dwarves.  The Dwarf Warrior with the chainmail needs some work still – I’m trying to figure out how to paint NMM chainmail.  I also started painting Floi’s armor and I just wasn’t happy with how it came out so I might have to start over on him.

So that wraps up September’s commitment… or lack of commitment.  I’ll give myself +3 points in the painting requirement as they are “modlels completed late”.
Now, its mid-October I guess I should lay out this months commitment.  I’m going to small in model count this month and hopefully still have a fighting chance to finish up.  I hurt myself already since I haven’t started and its October 14th.  I’ve been traveling a lot this month for work and I’ve got this little Lord of the Rings tournament I need to finish planning:  http://bilbosbirthdaybash.wordpress.com.  So we’ll see how much I can get accomplished!

Here’s the commitment:

• King’s Champion
• 1x Iron Guard

That’s 150 points and only 4 models!

Wish me luck.

To4G – Month 1 Commitment

Time to start off the September painting commitment.  I wanted to start off with a LOME legal army, even though we aren’t going to start playing games until both Month 1 and 2 are complete.  So my commitment is:

Floi Stonehand

5x Dwarf Warriors with Hand Weapons and Shields

3x Dwarf Warrios with Bows

1x Dwarf Warrior with 2-handed Axe

Here’s a picture of my “unpainted” models:

As you can see, some of the models have been primed black and even have some red paint on them.  I’m going to re-prime these with white and start from scratch.  I’m probably going to go with a blue and golden color theme I think.  Haven’t really decided yet for sure though. I’ve got a nice mix of metal and plastic models here for month one.  One of the things I’m going to try to do is make sure every model is uniquely posed.  This means as the months go on, I’m going to have to do some conversion as well.  However, for month 1 so I can get my feet wet, just painting stock models!

Dwarves of Ancient Realm of Khazad-Dum

Time to kick off the Tale of Four Gamers!

After my experience with the Unexpected Party, I felt certain that I was done with Dwarves; however, in 2011 I managed to win a few of the new dwarf models (King’s Champion and Floi) and decided that maybe, just maybe, I should start a “proper” dwarven army.  The King’s Champion is a beast and I haven’t yet seen the new Floi model in play so I built an army around those two “models” (granted the King’s Champion is really 3 models).

Here’s the “Master” List I’m going to build off:

1x Floi Stonehand
1x King’s Champion
8x Khazad Guard
4x Iron Guard
10x Dwarf Warrior w/ Shield
5x Dwarf Warrior w/ 2H Axe
13x Dwarf Warrior w/ Bow

44 Total models and right at 600 points

As anyone who follows my army building, you know I’m a big fan of conversions and striving to make each model as unique as possible.  The dwarf warriors I’ve chosen to work with aren’t especially amenable to many conversions.  So time will tell how successful I am with this venture.  In order to help make this army stand out, I’m going to try to learn and apply a new painting technique for me – non-metallic metal.  Hopefully all goes well, otherwise this could be a collossal failure!  Wish me luck!

My next post will be my first month commitment!

Battle Report: GitD Game 5 – The Artifact

Saturday
Game 5
Scenario:  The Artifact
Opponent:  Kyle Toth – High Elves featuring Elladan, Elrohir, and Erestor

The last game of the tournament saw me matched up with Kyle.  I’ve played Kyle once before at a local event (part of a team tournament primer) and I knew that he was a very good player.  Kyle was playing a High Elf army and while his army was relatively small (a little less than 40 models), I knew that given the high Fight Value it would make the combats challenging.  The other challenge I was going to have was the fact that with my slower movement rates he was likely going to be able to secure the artifact first.  The objective of this scenario is to dig up the Artifact and get it across the board and off your opponent’s table edge.

Kyle and I drew the second table that feature a river dissecting the board.  There were two paths across the river, a ford and a bridge.  In addition, there were several large woodland features.  The woods posed a particular problem as of course the elves could cross the terrain without any movement penalties.

The game started out predictably with the elves moving quickly towards the artifact.  I was surprised that Kyle deployed all three of his heroes behind his lines.  I was hoping this would allow me to use Gandalf to cast a Command or Immobilize on whichever elf reached the artifact first.  Unfortunately, it felt like every crucial priority roll I needed went against me.  Kyle was able to get two elves in base contact with the artifact and was able to dig it up on his first try.  I lost the next priority and when I called a heroic move (in hopes of Commanding the elf towards my dwarven line, Kyle counted with a  heroic move of his own from one of the twins.  Unfortunately, I lost the roll-off and Kyle was able to get the jump on moving the ring towards my board edge.

Kyle was able to use the bridge to cross the river and with my dwarves concentrated on the ford, I was out of position to stop him.  Kyle’s archery, while largely ineffective thanks to the Blinding Light, did manage to fill Shadowfax.  I had to use several points of Might to call heroic moves to try and get back into position.  I managed to isolate the elf carrying the prize and killed him using a Heroic Combat.  Balin secured the prize as I tried to using a Heroic Move to get some distance and start moving the Artifact towards Kyle’s edge.

While I was expending so much might to try and secure the Artifact, Kyle’s Elves and two of his heroes were tearing through my Dwarves.  He was easily winning the combats through superior numbers and higher Fight Value.  He managed to kill all my non-heroes and started to bring the full weight of his force on my surviving Heroes.

Balin and Thorin traded the prize but were eventually overwhelmed.  The twins were able to get into combat with the dwarven heroes, swarming them with high elves.  Over two turns, Gandalf was killed for the first time all weekend.  Unfortunately, for the dwarves looking to reclaim the lonely mountains, the High Elves proved too strong and too powerful.  Balin and Thorin were both slain in the last two turns of the game.  For only the second time ever (and first in the tournament), the Unexpected Party was killed to a man.  With plenty of time on the clock, Kyle was awarded a Major Victory.

Outcome:  Major Loss – 5 points.  65 Battlepoints Overall for the tournament.

Well, I gave it my best shot.  I found myself out of position most of the game and fighting a constant losing battle of priority and heroic move roll-offs.  I was happy to at least get the Artifact into my possession but by that time, my army was depleted of might and my numbers were reduced to just a few.  Kyle played a good game and his superior army won the day.

Post Tournament Thoughts…

Overall, this event was one of the finest weekends of gaming I’ve ever had. So many of the players are returning players or players that I’ve met in the past, the level of camaraderie is just outstanding. We have so many excellent people, painters, and players in this community, the tournament is always just a total blast. During play-testing my army was 5-4 so it should be much of a surprise that I ended up with a recording essentially the same – 2-1-2. I had hopes of competing for Best Overall, despite the small size of my army. I knew if I could survive the first two scenarios, the next three were all winnable for my army. My plan worked perfectly until I ran into the Elven buzzsaw in Game 5. Even though Best Overall was my “stretch” goal, the real prize I was hoping for was Best Appearance. I’m very happy that I was able to walk away with that award. I certainly did put a lot of time and effort into planning, building, converting, and painting that army. I was very pleased to see that I managed to score a “perfect”40” points appearance scoring – easily my best ever appearance score. Buoyed by such a high appearance score, I later found out that I finished 3rd Overall in the tournament – not bad for Army of only 15 models! Although I didn’t repeat as Best Overall Champion, I still feel like my experience at the Gathering in the Desert 2010 was a success.